Chapter 99: Darkness

System update completed.

An inhuman voice startled Calvin out of a dreamless sleep. Calvin’s eyes opened to a vast ocean of nothingness. His lungs sucked in air like he’d been drowning, pulling cold, harsh air across a throat sore from screaming.

He immediately started coughing, his lungs overwhelmed with the sheer density of the Warp in the air. After a second he was able to control his breathing, but it felt like he was breathing molasses.

He couldn’t see. Even with his improved night vision, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

Night vision doesn’t work in complete darkness. Elliot supplied unhelpfully.

The Tarak skin was still working, though. He could tell where the floor was, littered with disturbingly human bones, fading off into the distance where the accuracy of the sense became too fuzzy to make anything out.

There, to his left, was a whole, unmoving shape with slender arms and straight hair.

Kala!

Calvin sat up –

Calvin tried to sit up. The agony that had faded into the background and stalked him patiently had hit him with sudden intensity, wrenching an anguished groan from his lips.

Calvin did a quick self-eval.

Broken ribs, check. Compound fracture in my leg, check. Bruising across most of my body, bleeding, both internal and external. Chances of getting gangrene and dying: pretty good.

He’d had worse injuries, but only in Shadowboxing. 

Calvin’s groan must have woken up Kala, as the princess sat up, moaning and rubbing her head. From what Calvin’s skin could tell, the colorless shape that was Kala didn’t have any disfiguring wounds or sticky liquids matting her clothes. She seemed almost unharmed, despite landing on stone and bone from nearly terminal velocity.

Duh, she’d got higher Endurance than you. Especially now.

What? That shouldn’t matter. The collars were designed to suppress our Abilities.

Nevermind.

“Kala, are you okay?” Calvin asked, tentatively reaching a hand up to his neck. The collar had split on impact with the ground, breaking along the cut he’d been scoring into the glass.

“Give me a second,” She said, pulling something out the hair at the back of her neck, then applying it to the outside of the metal circle. It gave way with a soft click, falling off her neck as she rose to her feet.

“Did you…have a key tucked in your collar?” Calvin asked, frowning.

He felt her turn toward him, his sense too fuzzy to make out her expression. She sounded contrite, though.

“They didn’t really check my neck before slapping a collar around it,” She said with a shrug.

“Did you know we were going to be collared and tossed down a hole?”

“I saw it happening in my dreams, and took steps to survive it. It seemed like avoiding the fall would turn out worse in the long run. Sorry.”

“Eh, well, I’m the one who actually made this whole shit-sandwich happen,” Calvin said with a shrug. “No apology necessary…IF you come over here and set my leg.”

“Is it busted?” Kala asked, stumbling over to him, trying not to trip on the bones she couldn’t see under her feet.

“Okay, stop,” Calvin said, and Kala froze shortly before stepping on his busted leg.

“Shuffle forward a half step.”

She did so, nudging his leg, drawing a hiss out of him.

“Sorry, can’t see anything.”

“I know,” Calvin said as she knelt down and put her hands gently on his thigh.

“Further down. Careful, it’s a compound fracture.” He said, trying to focus on his breathing.

“Oh,” Kala said as her hand came into contact with blood-slick bone. “Oh, my,” She looked towards his voice and from this distance, he could sense the nervous smile on her face.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said with more sincerity than Calvin expected. Probably a leadership Skill.

“If you say so,” Calvin grunted.

“If you’ve got a happy place you can go to, now would be the time.”

Medi-tate

Calvin shut himself off from the outside world, then nodded. Oh, yeah, she can’t see.

“Go for it.”

With a sickening scrape, Kala pulled the bone back through the wound and lined it up with the section that had remained in his leg. The pain rolled over his little marble of thought, over and past it as his nerves gradually calmed down.

Meditation has reached level 19! 95% Correction.

Once the pain rolling over his little marble had died down a bit, Calvin pulled out of the Ability and took stock of his situation.

Yep.

It hurt.

The redoubled ache, and the pain of Kala putting pressure on his bleeding leg made him want to crawl back in his little marble of thought and shut everything else out, but he needed to make a plan with Kala before he could flee the sensation tearing through his leg and chest.

“Could you wake me up in about four hours?” Calvin asked. With four hours in Medi-tate, he could heal three days worth, greatly mitigating the internal bleeding, and increasing his odds of survival. Once his condition was stable they could worry about getting out of the pit.

A rumbling growl echoed through the darkness, and Calvin felt something at the edge of the Tarak skin-sight’s range, moving out there in the darkness.

“I don’t think that’s going to be an option,” Kala whispered quietly, her head turning to scan the emptiness, despite being effectively blind.

“You might be right about that,” Calvin whispered back. “Help me up.”

“I’m not standing you up,” Kala said, “You’ll bleed out if you try to walk on that thing. There’s still a gaping hole in the side of your leg where the bone went out, remember?”

“Then what do you suggest?” Calvin asked.

***Calvin***

“I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with this,” Calvin whispered as Kala redefined the Princess-Carry, with Calvin’s wound held just a bit higher than his head as he sprawled in her arms.

“Just stay quiet and keep your eyes or whatever lets you see in the dark peeled, I don’t want whatever made that noise to get the drop on us.”

Kala, meanwhile, was picking her way through the littered bones, trying to find a wall, or something they could orient themselves on, stumbling and cursing every now and then as a bone rolled under her feet or something poked her soles.

Gradually, the sensation of the ground changed, becoming less packed earth littered with bones, and more…a metal grate? Calvin could feel the corrugated metal beneath Kala’s feet as the bones began to thin out, making them pick up in pace as Kala carried him further into the darkness.

“Hold up,” Calvin said as he felt them approach something. His senses could make out a smooth bannister running out of his field of view in either direction, fading off into nothingness.

Calvin guided Kala to the bannister and they reached out a hand to feel it. The material wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before. It wasn’t cold, reflecting heat from his hand back to him, smooth and unmarred by time.

But he could tell that it would be absolutely unbending even if he were to exert all of his strength.

“What is this?” Kala said, blindly running a hand over it.

“A bannister,” Calvin said. It was slightly curved, drawing a concave arc that suggested they were standing in a circle.

Some kind of platform, perhaps?

It fit with the corrugated metal under their feet.

“Oh, a Bent came back.” Kala said, holding up a finger. “Shield your eyes.”

Above her finger, a brilliant white light sprang into being, bathing the platform in harsh white light.

The sudden light nearly blinded Calvin, and he spent a moment blinking spot out of his eyes before he was able to turn his gaze outward.

They were on a platform, that much was true, the bannister was to prevent whoever had manned the place originally from falling into the emptiness that the mysterious construction hung over.

“Can you shine the light down there?” Calvin asked.

Kala turned the light into a cone and narrowed it onto the void they were suspended over, seemingly by nothing at all. 

The light pierced through the darkness and landed on a dark simmering mist, bubbling like a witch’s cauldron as the light shined down on it.

Have her turn the light away from the mist! Elliot said, his voice seemingly more alarmed than Calvin was used to.

Why? 

Just do it!

“Kala, turn the light away.”

The light lingered on the mist for a moment, and it began to flinch, like the side of a horse with a biting insect on it.

Kala’s eyes widened and she pulled the light away, covering the mote of brilliant light with her hand, plunging them into darkness.

“What was that?” She whispered, glancing down at Calvin, carrying the two of them further away from the edge of the platform.

Well? Don’t hold out on us now.

That, was a Siphon. A place where the Harbingers poked a hole between us and The Warp. Siphons are the source of all magic, the things that power the System and all Harbinger Tech. It’s not the mist you have to be afraid of, It’s the things on the other side of the mist. Shining a light down there is like ringing a dinner bell for all the creepy crawlies that exist on that plane.

“I see.” Kala said, nodding at Elliot’s explanation. “Then do you have any idea how to get out of here?”

Well, they dropped us through the primary Warp vent, landing us on the observation platform…If we follow the bannister long enough, we should be able to find…something. I don’t know, I’ve never seen one in person.

“Sounds like as good a plan as any.” Calvin said, glancing around.

You think I could have the wasps fly me back up the shaft?

Try it. Might be better than trying to get out the hard way.

“Kala, can you see if you can find the shaft we dropped down?”

It’s not like the old cultists spend all day hanging around the edge of the damn thing, after all.

Kala shifted his weight in her arms and uncovered the light, focusing it into a narrow beam, pointing it at the ceiling.

“All those lessons are finally paying off,” Kala said, the dim backwash of light revealing her discolored eye. The sight filled Calvin with a deep frustration at his current situation.

He’d gotten them here, and now he was mostly helpless. He was supposed to protect her, and she was currently carrying him like a helpless waif. It was grinding on his nerves.

“I don’t see it.” Kala said, yanking him out of his thoughts.

“What?” Calvin asked, directing his gaze up, using his superior night vision to inspect the stone ceiling high above them.

They were standing inside a massive dome, from what her light could reveal, but no matter how she moved the light across the ceiling, there was no evidence of a hole.

Ah, crap, we’re stuck in the filter.

“What?” Calvin asked out loud, not bothering to keep his thoughts private anymore. Kala could hear, or at least see Elliot well enough to talk to him.

The filter is a subdimension that is a perfect copy of the Siphon, halfway between the real siphon and the warp. It’s designed to keep the juicy Warp flowing, while preventing reality-warping monsters from finding a way into our existence. Like a little bug-catcher.

“What does that mean for us?”

The exit isn’t going to be above us. We’ve got to find a working station and get it to phase-shift us out of the Filter before we can leave.

“Alright, let’s walk the edge of the platform and see if we can find some kind of bridge off.” Calvin said shortly before he heard a notification that he’d regained his first Bent.

1/8 Warp Remaining.

That’s not Bent. Why do I have Warp, Elliot?

Now don’t get mad, but I might have spent a few of your skill slots. And… Elliot sounded like he coughed into his hand.

Half your Body.

What!?

It’s fine, It’ll be fine. You’re gonna come out ahead on this deal. I know what I’m doing.

Show me my Abilities.

You don’t have to see them right away, do you, I mean – 

Right now.

Calvin Gadsint

Body: 8

Strength: 6

Kinesthetics: 7

Endurance: 6

Mind: 34

Intuition: 18

Stability: 16

Will: 24

Bent: 0/16

Warp:  1/8

Skills:

Stealth 7

Playboy 11

Old Salt 8

Sense-Grafting 15

Dupdomancy 18

Meditation 19

Chained Spirit 18

Calvinian Summoning 18

Your Princess is in Another Castle 7

Beli Ma 10

Genosian Language 5

Shifting 11

What in Avashniel’s Hoary ass is that!? Calvin thought, brows furrowing as he scanned the contents. From a rough glance, he’d lost no less than six of his skills, and gained two: Playboy and Old Salt.

In my defense, It’ll work out better for everyone involved –

“Why is my Body at eight!?” Calvin demanded.

“What?” Kala asked, frowning.

Well, the Warp Reservoir wasn’t playing well with your body toxicity, so I had to cannibalize ANOTHER skill slot to redistribute half your Body to create a sort of shielding around it that keeps you from croaking.

Then, to offset the lost skill slots, I made a system that allows me to stack tangentially related skills into Disciplines, which take the place of the skills in question. I put as many non-spellcasting abilities in there as I could, freeing up four slots by stacking Knife-Work, Fishing, and Hunting into Old Salt, and Talking to Girls, Read Expression, and Acting into Playboy.

“But why is my Body at eight!?” Calvin demanded, “I’m as weak as a first Break child!” Not only that, his Stealth had been forcibly dragged back down to seven, matching his now greatly reduced Kinesthetics.

You’re really taking a glass half-empty view on this.

“I’m stuck in a fucking hole in the ground in the ass-end of our reality and you messed with the System in my head and made me weak as a child!” It was no wonder he broke his leg. He was human levels of frail right now.

“Why now!?” Calvin shouted, turning his attention inward, looking for some way to slap some sense into Elliot.

“SHH,” Kala clapped her hand over Calvin’s mouth, gaining his attention. She peeled one finger off Calvin’s mouth and pointed in front of them, slowly shifting the light up to reveal a massive spider watching them from just outside the range of Calvin’s Tarak senses.

The massive spider didn’t have any eyes…

Calvin blinked as the fur of the guar-sized creature shifted on top of it, seemingly moving of its own accord. Trying to sense them, maybe?

“I think we should back away slowly,” Calvin whispered.

Kala nodded in agreement, carrying him backwards, her hand gliding along the bannister as they backed away.